Stenciled Pillows: Painting on Fabric with Acrylic Paint

Sarah from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs is the new kid on the block here on Infarrantly Creative. I admired her style ever since being graced with her amazing talent on Creating With the Stars (which she won by the way!). I begged her to come on board here on IC so I could showcase her skills. I know you will love her creative ideas as much as I do. And anyone who loves painting fabric as much as I do has gotta be awesome. Today she is here sharing some handmade stenciled pillows she created for cheap – plus she is sharing the Silhouette files with us. Please give a huge IC welcome to Sarah.

I love this because you can simplify it to be finished in about an hour or you can spend a little more time to have a completely custom look! Want to know the best part? It only cost about $3-5 per pillow sham!

I started with two striped designs. It really doesn’t get easier that this! For the diagonal stripes, I didn’t even have to measure! 🙂 I simply determined the width between stripes and offset it with two pieces of tape to keep the line straight and then laid the next piece of tape. For the wide chevron, I did measure, but still super simple!

The most important thing is to press the tape down firmly so that the paint doesn’t seep underneath the lines. Then I mixed up my paint, dipped my roller in, rolled off the excess (also important to get clean lines) and rolled away from the painter’s tape to avoid build up around the tape.

After that dried, I created an inexpensive trim by taping off the edge and brushed on a contrasting color.

Now for my favorite part! I decided to create my own stencils based on Caitlin Wilson’s Hong Kong and Scallop fabrics. I drew the patterns in Adobe Illustrator and cut the stencil on my Silhouette Cameo with Grafix Craft Plastic (see Amazon link above). You could also pick up a few stencils at your local craft store for a simpler method.

I’ve been making stencils for about a year and have learned that not everything can be easily translated into a stencil. To get the thin gold lines instead of a gold fill on the Hong Kong inspired stencil, I created a two part stencil, the first to capture the outer edge of the cube, and the second to finish the inside. A little extra effort, but I was able to achieve the exact look I was going for, so definitely worth it!

If you’ve never stenciled before, here are a few tips. 1. Lay and tape paper over your table, tape the sham down, center the stencil and use painters tape to secure your stencil in several places to avoid it moving 2. dip your brush in paint and wipe off excess on a paper towel before starting, you want a small amount of paint on the brush to avoid it going underneath the stencil. 3. Hold the stencil down with your other hand as you go to prevent it from coming up 4. Carefully line up the next row so that the pattern stays consistent.

Allow the paint to dry completely and heat set with a white cloth between the pillow and iron on a low setting.

Came over from SMD because I just had to see this project. Beautiful work, as always! I am considering stenciling my own duvet cover b/c the design I wanted was a comforter (not duvet cover), color was slightly off and way too expensive for something that usually does not last, so this has given me a bit more confidence.

Oh, and I’ve been playing around with creating a few pattern stencils myself so thanks for the tip about splitting into two to make it work.

Any tips for achieving a kind of geometric watercolor design? And, is there a specific finish that is more desirable when using latex paint and fabric medium (flat, satin, etc.)?

Hi Ann Marie! For fabric it helps to be on a flat surface, such as a table top. Before applying paint it helps to remove as much paint as possible on a paper towel, and then apply more as needed. This significantly reduces the amount of paint under the stencil. Finally, with your other hand, hold the stencil down where you are painting. Hope this helps!

I’m curious about the IKEA Gurli shams, aside from stenciling them. I was considering buying a royal blue one but having only seen them online, I am unsure about the quality and how they look up close. Yours look nice here but in other photos they look a bit lumpy. Maybe it’s just that other people didn’t use a large enough pillow form inside?

They are great – a nice thick canvas. I will say though if you purchase the pillow forms from IKEA they are crap. That might be why they look lumpy in other pictures. I always buy my pillow forms from JoAnn Fabrics instead.

[…] Stenciled Pillows: Painting on Fabric … – Sarah from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs is the new kid on the block here on Infarrantly Creative. I admired her style ever since being graced with her amazing … […]

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